A CLOAK and dagger plan to install up to 75 wind turbines alongside the Torcal Natural Park is being fought blow by blow by residents.

A campaign has been launched after the group discovered that the “ugly and ineffective” windmills are to go up around the area south of Antequera.

They insist the scheme, named Parque Eolico Los Lentiscares, will destroy the area’s important tourist industry and endanger a number of rare birds, including the Griffon Vulture and Short-Toed Eagle.

They demand the project, which they claim is being undertaken by stealth and with a total disregard for the rights of local people, be scrapped and moved elsewhere.

“This is not about nimbyism,” said Czech resident Bob Hrabal. “We are not against sustainable energy. We genuinely believe this is an ineffective and badly-sited scheme.

“There are lots of eagles and vultures flying around here and many people rely on tourism for their livelihoods. It is not going to benefit the local economy in any way.

“It is not just expatriates, many local Spaniards have put their life savings into running casas rurales to supplement their pensions. Once the windmills go in it is end of story.”

The group that also includes Spanish, English and German residents is now putting posters up all around the area.

They have managed to get Malaga ombudsman Francisco Gutierrez onto the case.

But, after spending six months demanding information on the scheme promoted by Malaga’s Environment Department, they have still not been given exact details.

They were told that they were “not entitled” to see it and would have to apply through the proper legal channels available.

It was only after a third meeting in Malaga, that a surveyor working for the Junta finally gave them a map showing the projected scheme.

“It is absolutely incredible. They refused to tell us who was behind it, how many windmills there were and when it would begin,” continued Bob Hrabal.

“It is a disgrace. This is a public body, with public functionaries paid out of our public taxes. We have a right to know.”

The group claims that of one wind turbine scheme installed in the Sierra Nevada only two out of 40 windmills is currently working properly.

It also insists that the energy put into their construction far outweighs their long term benefit.

Hrabal, a financier, who retired to the area three years ago with his wife, claimed: “This scheme is all about local grants and subsidies from the EU.

“If it was really about the environment, the money would be far better spent putting solar panels on the roofs of all the houses here.”

Suspicious

The Olive Press has discovered that the scheme was first published in the governments’ official information publication BOI in January 2007.

But a year earlier in 2006 an environmental impact assessment report was undertaken by the group called BIOGEA.

Working under the orders of a company called Orni Tour, based in Cadiz, they spent eight months apparently looking into the area’s bird life.

“We spent 650 hours observing the birdlife,” biologist Miguel Angel Farfan told the Olive Press. “Among the birds we saw in the area were vultures, rare falcons and the Short-Toed Eagle. We even saw the occasional Golden Eagle, but the frequency was sadly very low.”

However, the scheme seems to have been passed regardless.

And when it came to getting a copy of the report, Farfan insisted that he was not at liberty to divulge that information.

He did however confirm that the current rules prevented a windmill from being built 3km from the nest of a Short Toed Eagle and 1.5km from a vultures.

One well known naturalist, Peter Jones, who has worked on the protection of birdlife in Andalucia, said it ‘is extremely’ hard to get hold of Impact Assessment Reports. He said “it is often highly dubious that they are conducted properly and they are often aimed to merely rubber stamp a proposed scheme.”

He continued: “They are public documents and should, in theory, be easy to get but it is rarely the case. It makes me very suspicious.”

6 COMMENTS

Windfarms are the most useless form of alternative energy yet devised – a total waste of time. This will really improve the vistas of the Torcal Valley won’t it?!

The inability of the Junta to tell anyone about the scheme makes them look idiots and further tarnishes Spains government. Everyone has to be involved; The Junta act as if the scheme is top secret. Idiots.

Wind farms are only viable because the energy “has” to be bought by the elctrical companies at a premium rate of 16 cents a unit.They can then sell it to the public at about 12 cents a unit. Solar electricity is paid for at 30 cents a unit. Nuclear power costs about 3 cents a unit and fossil fuel costs 7 cents a unit. Once the compulsary price is removed in 2010 these ecological power plants will cease to be viable and will then become useless. Small scale plants are even less useful. It takes about ten years to pay back the cost of a domestic hot water panel, and 12 years for an electrical panel. The big wind farms are the visible end of a stupid iceberg of false ecological energy production that only works if the government fiddles the books.

We live south of El Torcal so the artical re “An Ill Wind” is important to us. We do not want to spoil the view with horible wind turbines and no matter what has been reported ref. Golden Eagles they have it wrong, we see them regularly as well as many other species of Birds. Also, migrating birds take the route from the Coast North through and past Almogia district and on/over Torcal. Not just one or two but hundreds/thousands even. The map you show on page 7 is not very visible. Any chance of putting a clearer version on your web page please so that we can see where these ugly things are going (proposed) to be sited?

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Voted Spain‘s number one expat newspaper and second in the world, by 27,000 people polled by UK marketing group Tesca. “The best English newspaper in southern Spain,” according to the Rough Guide. The Olive Press is the English language newspaper for Andalucia. Local news from Costa del Sol and inland Andalucia plus national news from around Spain. A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press represents the huge and growing expatriate community in southern Spain – 230,000 copies distributed monthly (160,000 digital impressions) with an estimated readership, including the website, of more than 500,000 people a month.